So you think you have a great idea for a business, but the extent of your plan is a few notes scribbled on the back of a fast-food bag.

Maybe you need someone with experience to guide you.

That's the goal of a new group called MERLIN Mentors. MERLIN stands for Madison Entrepreneur Resource, Learning and Innovation Network, and it's issuing a call for both mentors and would-be entrepreneurs.

Madison already has several organizations aimed at giving new businesses a jump start, such as the Small Business Development Center and SCORE, or Service Corps of Retired Executives.

But MERLIN Mentors is different, said chief mentor Terry Sivesind, a biotech entrepreneur and investor.

"We think the biggest thing is, you're getting people still actively involved in businesses and startups who have the hands-on experience you may not get (elsewhere)," Sivesind said.

The group is based on a Massachusetts Institute of Technology program called Venture Mentor Service, in which more than 100 business people serve as mentors, working in teams with each potential entrepreneur.

From the time the service began in 2000 through October 2007, more than 900 entrepreneurs had received help and 88 companies were formed, based on MIT research.

MERLIN Mentors, though, is targeting a much wider geographic area than just UW-Madison. The group hopes to reach as far as southeast Wisconsin, including the Milwaukee area, "as long as the entrepreneur is willing to attend meetings that probably will be in Madison," said Toni Sikes, who is on MERLIN's steering committee and is founder and artistic adviser to The Guild, a Madison company that sells original art.

Mentors will be asked to spend up to one day a month on the program, including a half-day with the entrepreneur and lunch with the entire group. Organizational meetings already have drawn more than 60 potential mentors.

"These are very busy people, chief executives of some of the best-known companies in Madison," Sikes said, including Thomas "Rock" Mackie, co-founder of medical device company TomoTherapy, and Dana Lytle, co-founder of design agency Planet Propaganda.

MERLIN Mentors hopes to advise businesses of all types, high-tech to low-tech, and will have two somewhat unusual caveats: no financial involvement with the startups they guide and no judgments on the potential success of the venture.

MIT's group follows the same rules, Sikes said.

"They had a great example of a business they thought was absolutely ridiculous: flying cars," Sikes said. "But they took on the entrepreneur, and he now has sales in place for some of those cars."

Sikes said successful Madison business people are eager to participate in MERLIN Mentors because of others who assisted them.

"A number of people were incredibly generous and helpful to me along the way," Sikes said. "This is for all of those unofficial mentors in the world who have helped all of us who have started businesses."